Two-terminal components are known as state of the art. These optoelectronic components contain two contacts (terminals) between which is a p-n semiconductor structure for producing a photon current upon light impingement.
A drawback of this system is that the voltage must be switched so that red-green-blue (RGB) signals are only obtained in a sequentially timed relationship.
On the one hand, in this context, an nipin layer structure is already known from U.S. Pat. No. 5,311,047 as a photosensitive electrical component based upon amorphous silicon with two outer contacts. On the other hand DE 19613820.5-33 proposes a pin structure as a photosensitive electrical component with two outer contacts based upon amorphous silicon.
In addition as state of the art three terminal components are known. A first proposal for producing a pin/TCO/nipin structure as a three-terminal component is already published in M. Topic, F. Smole, J. Furlan, W. Kusian, J. of Non-Cryst. Solids 198-299 (1996) 1180-1184.
Here as well a disadvantage is that the voltage must be sequentially switched.
Finally, so-called charge-coupled devices (CCD) are known in which the color-Moire effect complicates digital signal acquisition.
With the mentioned structures for the formation of such two-terminal components or three-terminal components, the absorber layers of the individual diodes can be adjusted correspondingly as a function of the desired color separation. Known, vertically integrated color detectors are based upon the requirement that the voltage applied to the detector must be sequentially changed to obtain complete color information. For this purpose at least three or in most cases more switched voltages are required.